Wednesday, September 15, 2010

From the Flux Capacitor to Camelot

Every Wednesday, YA Highway asks their readership a simple question to answer on your blog. Once you answer, you link your blog in the comments for other readers to hop on board. This is Road Trip Wednesday.

Today's question: If you could travel back to any historical era for research purposes, which would you choose?

Damn you, YA Highway! Why did you have to specify this was for research? I could've gone so many ways if you left a gaping whole of possibility. I could go back to the 80s and truly appreciate the hair metal scene, for instance. The second runner up is revolutionary France because my inner goth likes the concept of all that bloodshed and I harbor a deep love for A Tale of Two Cities.

But for research?

Marty, you want to go WHERE?

I'm not a big historical fiction person. I read it from time to time, but never thought of writing it myself, mainly because laziness has ruled my ass since I left college on the research front*. However, if I can use the DeLorean and zip anywhere I want with no time limit?

Arthurian England without a doubt.

Not to be confused with the fancier, more enlightened cousin of European history, aka The Renaissance, I'm talking about the middle ages when things were "rougher" and could lend a different outlook on a story. (This is, of course, in my totally nonprofessional historical fiction reader perspective.) Besides, I'm an Arthurian nerd as much as I'm a follower of the Beam.

So I'd write historical fiction with an Arthurian bent and since I got a soft spot for one of the supposed villains of Arthurian lore, I'd have to use Mordred as my protagonist. To do this effectively, I'd need to find out tons of things to guarantee authenticity: how bastards were treated, what the general attitudes were among the royalty and non, how often men and women interacted and how, how hardcore was Christianity as the mindset versus paganism and how often did people fake the Christianity thing to continue pagan practices, et cetera, blah blah blah.

Lurkdom, tell me: If you go head off to a different time period - for any reason - where would you go and why?

And don't forget to stop by YA Highway to see what the other peeps are saying!

* When the research bug does take over though, I have a nerdy blast.
_______Last.fm hit of the day: Bang Your Head by Dope Stars, Inc.

REMINDER - Music Month is still happening. The best comment of the week gets a mix CD.

9 comments:

Very cool story idea! As you can probably guess, I highly recommend The Time Travelers Guide to Medieval England. It really goes into detail as to how prevalent Christianity was at the time in the mindset of the people.